Thoughts on Bulls vs. Bears

I know there are some Booyah Bulls out there, but there is also this underlying theme of pessimism that seems to be around individual investors. Nobody likes the President, and he's spying on folks. His State of the Union speech was largely forgettable. There is corruption in Congress and the Senate. The Right Wing took over the Court without a fight. Nobody wants to fight the war anymore, and Iran is on the horizon as the next war. Energy bills have gone up, so folks have cut back spending on other things over the winter. Adjustable rate financing has taken money out of pocketbooks, so that's more money folks can't spend.

There's your fear. There's your "panic." Things seem dire, outside of an hour long CNBC show of shouts and touts. But taking a look at the stock market, isn't everything but the 20% Booyah moves priced in already? The market has been basically flat for a long time now, which actually has allowed earnings to catch up with valuations and could lead to a strong rally should investors feel good about themselves again.

And after Friday's fears that wage pressures will keep the Fed hiking rates, imagine what would happen to stocks if Bernanke indicated otherwise? Especially with the GDP clocking in at 1.1% last quarter, he might want to take a pause just to see how the current string of rate hikes impact numbers going forward rather than risk going too far with rate hikes. (Which may or may not be the case... We'll know soon enough!)

JMHO, of course.